Childhood Environments and Flourishing

Early childrearing provides a critical environmental context for development. As the authors in this book have illustrated, early life context has implications for all manner of later outcomes, including the management of aggression (see chapter 7), brain development (see chapter 2), participation in relationships (see chapter 4) and mental health (see chapter 3). In all of these chapters, the emphasis is on the nature of the early environment that best prepares the infant for healthy physiological and psychological functioning, not just for a particular physical environment, but for the social, relational world and membership in a community. Perhaps the single most significant goal of early development is this preparation for social interaction and participation in close relationships, a large component of which depends on successful sociomoral functioning. To achieve " successful " sociomoral functioning, early communal contexts must support development of the individual in a way that emphasizes not only the happiness and goal attainment of the self but also a socially skilled self within changing relational contexts. Healthy relationships are reciprocal and mutually responsive. Thus, raising a child who will interact and